February 15, 2012

Sacramento police today arrested a county juvenile dependency court referee on suspicion of trying to get two women he thought were underage girls to strip for an adult magazine.

Sacramento Juvenile Dependency Court Referee Daniel Madden Horton, 47, was booked into the downtown jail at 5:05 p.m. today. No charges had been filed on him as of today, but a criminal complaint is likely to be filed as soon as Thursday, according to documents obtained by The Bee.

Horton was in the process of being booked late this afternoon and was unavailable for comment. District Attorney's officials also declined comment. He has resigned from his job in the Juvenile Dependency Court, according to courts spokeswoman Ginger Sylvester.

In a case summary Sacramento police presented to the District Attorney's Office, detectives are asking prosecutors to charge Horton on three misdemeanor counts.

Police are seeking two counts that would charge Horton with trying to lure police decoys he thought were 17-years-old into stripping for Oui Magazine picture shoots. The third count would charge him of attempting to have one of the women masturbate for him.

The documents say police first began investigating Horton Nov. 5 after they were contacted by a female Jane Doe who worked at a tanning salon. She said Horton approached her in December 2010 told her she could make $600 for nude photo shoots, according to the case summary.

The girl, who said she told Horton she was only 17, agreed to model a bathing suit for him and also consented to expose her breasts to him, according to the document.

When she declined his request to remove her bathing suit bottom, she said he pulled it down himself, the document said.

Police, after their November interview with the tanning salon employee, set up the decoy operations on Feb. 2 where he made contact with the two women that resulted in the allegations that are expected to be filed in court.

The two women were identified in the case summary as Ashley Doe and Amber Doe. They said they gave their ages to Horton as 17, even though Amber was 20 and Ashley was 18, the documents stated.

In one incident, at 12:15 p.m. on the Thursday afternoon outside the La Riviera Family Pizza parlor, Horton approached the decoy identified as Amber Doe and eventually asked her if she was interested in having nude photos taken of her. She said she was not and Horton left her alone, the papers said.

Later that day, at 2:20 p.m. at the corner of Folsom Boulevard and Bradshaw Road, Horton pulled his car over and made a similar offer to Ashley Doe, who had been standing on the street and told Horton she was waiting for a friend. When she expressed interest, he gave her his phone number, the documents said.

While a police surveillance team watched him, Horton then drove around the area and contacted two Rancho Cordova police officers, told them he worked in Juvenile Court and informed them that a prostitute was working in the area and that somebody had been contacting her and asking if she would be willing to have nude pictures taken for $600, the documents said.

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